The good – It was good to see
Jake, Danielle, Katlyn and Hannah again in Phoenix, how kind they have been to
act as a delivery box for us for all our Amazon parcels including a new
Sailrite sewing machine which will allow us to repair our own sails and make
all sorts of things for Sarita. We departed on the 9pm Mexican bus Tufesa in
style. Visions of a Mexican bus conjures up images of uncomfortable steel
seats, no air-conditioning, noisy engine and chickens but the Tufesa buss was
excellent. We boarded a new Volvo bus with as much leg room as a business class
seat which tilts, movies, wifi and air-conditioning. I have to say it is
probably the nicest bus I have been on anywhere. The journey to the Mexican
border through the night was comfortable and when we arrived at the US Border
crossing to Mexico we were waved straight through the US side to Mexico so no
hassle there. Everybody on the bus then has to get of on the Mexican side for
the customs checks. We were a little nervous as we had 9 bags to check through
with lots of spares including the sewing machine and thought they might want
to extract some customs duty from us but the officials were so pleasant and
helpful I could not believe it. They just laughed as they saw all our bags and
inferred we were like returning Mexicans. I was very relieved. We put all our
bags back on the bus and went to get to get our 180 day tourist visas. With only
one person waiting in line for a visa and a very polite English speaking man on
the counter who was not only helpful and efficient but pleasant with it. We got
our visas and left with a smile.
The bad – We walked out of the
immigration office to find out that our bus had already departed with all of
our luggage on board! I knew we could always to to our destination but my
biggest concern was our baggage as this would almost certainly be stolen when
it got to Guaymas.
The bloody marvelous – to our
amazement the Immigration officer, so perturbed by our predicament tried
phoning the bus company to get them to turn the bus around but could not get
through at 1am so without hesitation he left his immigration post and signaled for
us to get into the official Mexican Immigration van, bars on windows, and drove
at break-neck speed through the streets to catch up with the bus which we did
in about 20 mins. We caught the bus up at a scheduled stop where the
immigration officer gave the bus company a polite ticking off. We thanked the
officer very much and gave him a suitable reward for all his efforts which were
well above and beyond the call of duty. What an amazing experience - never in our wildest dreams would a US or UK immigration officer do that for us. Welcome back to Mexico! it may be a bit rough around the edges but the people are marvelous.
